


Nature, Nurture

by completetheory



Category: Kindred: The Embraced
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory
Summary: Cameron, newly-minted Primogen of the city Brujah, is immediately the focus of the entire Clan's rather ungenerous attention, including assassination attempts. Sonny Toussaint, fortunately, doesn't share Julian's opinion about ... a major spoiler in the show that probably shouldn't be mentioned out here in the summary.Daedalus... is also there.
Relationships: Daedalus/Cameron
Kudos: 8





	Nature, Nurture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadScientific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts).



Cameron would not have described himself as a careless man in life, and becoming Kindred - becoming Brujah, specifically - had only whetted the keen edge of his survival urges, and his observational tendencies even in times of great duress. That was how he knew the hit had been planned expertly. The two Kindred who ambushed his single bodyguard looked like Gangrel, but the Gangrel clan was not so organized as to know precisely when Cameron's other bodyguard had left. So their disguises were part of the execution.

It was meant to be an execution, anyway. Cameron, laying bloodied in the alleyway, could give them only four and a half stars for buying his death routine and leaving early. They didn't cut off his head, so they weren't professional assassins. If he had to guess, the rural Brujah-cum-Primogen would have said they were operatives of Sirus, Cameron's predecessor's Sire.

That made it even more important to live. Not only was it frowned upon to waste Brujah resources like this when they had chosen their Primogen, but also it was apt to cause ructions with the Gangrel, when witnesses inevitably pointed the blame their way. It was a frame job, and Cameron was not happy to accept another gang war so soon after the first had settled.

Cameron lay in that filthy alley for about twenty minutes, with every motion a costly agony. He reflected on the politeness and deference he had shown Eddie's sire after winning this position, and how the man seemed to look right through him as he did his best to reassure that he would not let San Francisco wither on the vine. He should have suspected it then. 

There were a few hours until daylight, but he could ill afford to be out in it while he was spending so much blood to heal himself. The dumpster nearby was a possible port in the storm, but he didn't like it much. If they came along to empty it, there would be questions for the Masquerade, at best. Cameron O'Reilly was as legit a face in the human world as possible. It would destroy his reputation to be discovered like this. So none of the options were ideal. 

He tried to get up, several times, but each time the wounds announced themselves as still too serious. He heard the wail of San Francisco's finest, saw the red and blue lights painted on the wall and inched away as best he could. The form of the wild - a Brujah specialty, though not unique to them - came to him in the form of a shaggy mutt, limping back away from the encroaching police. The same wounds that affected his human form hobbled his canine shape, as well. 

Here, he recognized a face, at least. Frank... What was his last name? Kopetchi? Kochack? 

His Sire, Sorrel, would be very disappointed in him for not being able to hold this memory. (Un?)fortunately, his Sire was also dead. Like everyone who crossed Luna ended up being dead.

Kohenek. Was that it? 

"Be careful, Sonny. I'd bet my badge that's not a dog." Frank urged. 

'Sonny' was Santino Toussaint, of the Ventrue, and a much more known quantity to Cameron. 

"You know that the problem is, with this kind of talk, you _are_ betting your badge. Right? It's not a werewolf, Frank. Relax." The grandchilde of Archon came close, and Cameron could smell him as Kindred. This was the origin of the term, 'kindred', how the members of the dead but not departed could sense, and know one another.

He growled, wary of pain, of the hit having potentially been Julian and his ever-loyal Childe come to finish the job. It was possible!

"Don't worry. Easy. No one's going to hurt you, pup." Sonny soothed.

"How do you know the 'dog' didn't kill our vic here?" Frank asked.

"Well, I'll tell you how. No blood on the victim's hands. No blood on the dog's mouth. No weapons, but the dog is badly injured. I say the dog got stabbed fighting off a mugging gone wrong, and his owner died right over there. If we let him go to animal control, I don't know, Frank. I know the HLEO guys, I can see this going better if we give him directly to them for now."

"He needs a vet." Frank weighed in, "But, sure. Why not. He's probably a vampire, not a werewolf."

"Frank. Please. Can we go just one night without this?" Sonny scooped up Cameron, who was too exhausted to struggle, and who didn't dare transform back. If it wasn't Luna... if the hitmen returned to prove his death to their employer, better he not be present. Sonny's squad car was spacious and felt more welcoming than it had a right to, and of course the Ventrue officer made an excuse to take "the dog" to Julian Luna. 

Kohenek had mercifully been only somewhat opposed, as if deep down he was more validated than ever. He knew what Luna was. Cameron, if Prince, would not have consigned a Toreador to death while granting her promise to spare a human lover who knew of the Masquerade. But Cameron had not been Prince. And he was now being carried up the stone steps, into the jaws of Julian's home. 

Julian was about as displeased as Cameron had feared.

"What are you thinking?" Luna's voice, never completely controlled, despite their famous 'Ventrue poise', was already on the warning side of ragged. "Bringing _him_ here?"

"I understand. But where else--"

"In a public park. In broad daylight. To a vampire hunter. I don't care. Anywhere but here." Julian's aristocratic frame was bent like barbed wire over the Primogen meeting table, all angles and bristles. Cameron didn't dare move, tail down low and ears as well. 

"Is that what Archon would want?" Sonny asked, very quietly.

The explosion inside Julian banked sharply - he wheeled around as if to reproach, then deliberately caught himself. The color of his eyes hinted at how close he had come to Frenzy before realizing Sonny was right. "No. No, he would --he would not want this. Take him downstairs. Keep him out of my sight. I don't want to know he's here, and when he's recovered, I want him gone." 

Sonny carried Cameron, wrapped in a towel that did double duty to staunch the bleeding, down to the basement. He didn't know if Daedalus was down there or not, but he figured he'd have the announcement in time. The young Ventrue settled the wounded Brujah on the antique chair by the paintings, Daedalus' workstation where he did new things and mostly ruined them in pique. 

Cameron changed back, curling up in the chair and leaning his head against the armrest. He was a little beyond bandages and towels, and he hadn't dared ask Julian Luna for blood - from anyone. The look on his face, the smoldering rage. He would not soon forget.

"Mx. Toussaint. Thank you for the rescue." Cameron said, trying to summon up some dignity even in the face of this obvious besting, "I need you to do another favor for me." 

"Shoot. The worst I can do is say no." Sonny folded his arms. 

"I need you to warn the Prince and the Gangrel Primogen - Cash - that someone is trying to reignite the war. The men who attacked me were dressed like Gangrels, but they were not Gangrels. I can't be sure I knew them well, but I _know_ I've seen them before in Eddie's circles." 

Sonny digested that. "Would you swear to that in front of the Primogen? And who do you think is behind it?"

"I have my suspicions. No one I would care to name without proof." Cameron rolled his neck, tiredly. "They make it very hard to care for them, the Brujah. They want to grab power like a possession, they don't care to treat it like a friend, and have it walk beside them. They aren't gentle... or patient, or soft where they need to be." 

"And you are?" Sonny prompted.

"I try. I am trying very hard." Cameron took a deep breath. "Violence is in our species, not just our clan. But we can use it judiciously. We can be responsible, and work within society, and nature. We don't need to plunder it or pulverize it. Sirus believes differently. He wants to kill what he can't control."

Sonny's eyebrows climbed at the hint. So Cameron wouldn't directly own that suspicion but he would get close. Interesting. 

"And what do you think is the best antidote for someone like Sirus?" Sonny couldn't resist asking it, but Cameron - unlike many of his clan - did not flare into anger at the potential insult, the possible goading to trap him into wishing death onto another Brujah who was older and more powerful by far than the ten year Embraced Cameron. 

"A unified front. Quietly removing all the ways in which he is powerful. You don't need to kill him. You just need to cut off his support. Blockade his profits. Make him the weak, and worrying man he is to his own followers, and show them how much he struggles when his primary method of violence, and baiting violence, fails him." 

"Hmm. I'm gonna go see if I can get you something to drink, Primogen Cameron. --Please stay down here, though, while I'm gone. And don't touch anything?" 

At the nod, Sonny departed, and Cameron curled up and tried to stop his autonomous breathing. It was a response to pain, and also a sign of his age, that his body had not yet abandoned that quirk, while others, like Julian, could turn it on and off at will. Like an automaton coming to life, a strange machine that imitated the creatures around it while very firmly not being one of them.

Cameron was surprised not to hate Julian, but he did hate the ignorance and luxury in which the man lived. The way others seemed to love him no matter what he did, or who he betrayed. For Julian, there was always an excuse. 

"Hello, Cameron." 

The Nosferatu's soft, patient voice did not surprise him. This was his home, after all. He lived under the mansion where the clans all met, and he was very welcome to the place. It wasn't terrible, but it was, inescapably, a basement. 

"Sorry I think I bled on your chair." Cameron murmured, "How long have you been here?"

"It will likely not take much effort to remove." Sanguine, "Almost the whole time. For what it's worth, I too would be comfortable raising a blood hunt against Sirus only with proof. You will have to find some way of showing that it was him, and if he was in his own domain, that will be difficult." 

Cameron swallowed. "I don't want war with the other Brujah. I just want things to go as they have been. One on one, smooth... compromises." 

"It can sometimes be that way." Daedalus agreed, sitting on a box nearby. He obviously did not entertain that often. "Do you smoke?"

"Mmn. I don't think it'll do me much good right now, though. Thanks." 

"That's all right. Would you like something for the pain? It will relax you, and also help you to sleep while you heal." 

Cameron wondered at the gentleness. "Yes. Please." Not from someone so 'frightening' or 'hideous' - he was young, for Kindred, but not utterly naive. He knew the Nosferatu were sometimes unpleasant to look at, but one could get used to them very quickly, if one had a mind, and they were loyal, and often very good companions, from what he'd heard. At the very least this one was loyal to Julian. 

He took the offered vial and drank the green, slightly absinthe-tasting liquid inside. It may have been something of a placebo, but he fancied his muscle stiffness and the rents along his back felt better already. 

"Thanks. I know I didn't make the best first impression." 

"Killing Archon?" Daedalus gently prompted, "It was a great shock to us all, what he did. In some ways I think Julian has transferred over that shock instead to his murder, because he cannot reconcile what was done to him. He was made a murderer without his consent, and the Brujah were right to hate Archon. But these things, in time, are forgotten and set aside. The Earth grows green again over the ruins of every civilization, and there is peace and birdsong after bloodshed. If we cannot heal as individuals... eventually we heal as people, and put these things behind us." 

"Is that-... your way of saying you forgive me for it?" Cameron navigated. 

"I cannot forgive what I never saw as a slight. I had the benefit of an immediate understanding. I - judged your clan for a lie. It is I that should ask for your forgiveness." 

Cameron didn't hesitate, "You've got it. I'm not Eddie. I don't want a token seat at the table. I want to help craft policy. To do that, I need you and the others to buy in. To believe in me." 

"Your stability is what the Brujah need, even if they don't understand it right now." Daedalus suggested. "We will find the person responsible for your attempted murder. Together. When Sonny returns with your blood, rest. The information you wish to spread will be spread through the Nosferatu, and I will return to see you again shortly."

The potion was doing its work, and Cameron felt despite his worries a serenity, a powerful, velvet tiredness coming over him. He did drink when Sonny returned, but by that point he was barely able to thank the Ventrue for his help. It was a relief to slip off into the abyss, and to dream nothing, instead of smoke, and fire, and screams. For that alone, he owed Daedalus a great deal.


End file.
